


Lost Light

by Panhead20



Category: Destiny (Video Games), Red vs. Blue
Genre: Based on a fic, Blood, Fox and Locus are friends, Guns, Inspired by Fanfiction, Near Death Experiences, Please lmk if I missed a trigger warning, RvB Destiny AU, This exists solely to murder ao3 user ScribbleBoxFox, could be shippy if you squint I suppose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 11:35:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20741561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Panhead20/pseuds/Panhead20
Summary: The Light is gone. The City has fallen. In a back alleyway, two Guardian friends struggle to survive.This fic is based on Scrib's RvB fic, The Long Road Home! It's a fantastic piece and I highly recommend everyone take a look at it. This was written around a convo we had about her characters in the Destiny universe.





	Lost Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ScribbleBoxFox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribbleBoxFox/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Long Road Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10205801) by [ScribbleBoxFox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribbleBoxFox/pseuds/ScribbleBoxFox). 

> Major thanks to Scrib's for her help with this, and of course, for her original character, Fox.

A sharp  _ crack _ rang through the air and a Cabal Legionary dropped to the ground with a sharp hiss as his suit lost pressure in an explosion of blood and organogel. Fox spun around at the noise, fists raised.

"Watch your back." came the deep, baritone voice, crackling over the comms in an exasperated tone. The diminutive Titan swept the roofline and waved to her partner once she found him, hurriedly reloading his sniper rifle.

"That's  _ your _ job Locus, c'mon!" she chirped back, enthusiastically dashing forward and slamming her fist into the next Legionary's gut, channeling her Void Light through it and evaporating it where it stood. Despite the circumstances—the Red Legion had invaded the City, as evidenced by the burning husk of the Vanguard Tower above them—she was maintaining her chipper attitude, and so far, her fireteam was cutting a bloody swathe through the Cabal infiltrators.

Both partners were distracted by the shotgun blast from the alley besides them, a battered Colossus stumbling from the shadows and gurgling its last.

"Can you both shut up and focus?" their last partner sighed as he stepped into the light, slotting a new shell into his weapon with a smooth, practiced motion. "This is serious!"

"I thought your name was Siris." Fox pondered aloud, and she could practically see the disappointed deadpan behind the Warlock's casque. "Ok, ok, sourpuss. Let's find out who's in charge and go kick their ass."

Locus clambered off his rooftop, landing surprisingly lightly for his large frame, cloak flapping behind him in the wind from the many fires. He maintained his stony silence, but his lack of dissent made his stance clear. Siris grumbled and hung his head.

"Fine, fine! We'll go running off half-cocked, like usual. Where the hell do you think you're gonna find the boss?"

One could almost  _ hear _ the grin beneath Fox's helmet as a rumbling roar filled the air and a massive Cabal ship suddenly loomed over the neighboring building, hanging low in the sky and launching drop-pods into the City indiscriminately.

"I'm gonna  _ guess _ he's up there." she replied, and ran off to find a way up the nearby buildings.

* * *

"This was a  _ stupid _ idea!" Siris yelled over the explosions and gunfire. The fireteam had made it to the rooftops relatively uncontested, but had now been pinned down by an entire squadron of Red Legionaries, complete with Psion sharpshooters on neighboring roofs. "We still can't reach the ship and now we're stuck on a  _ roof! _ "

For once, Fox didn't have a response, too busy shoving a new clip into her hand cannon and flicking it closed. Her Ghost, on the other hand, took the time to pop out beside her to agree.

"He's right you know. Unless you've figured out that jetpack finally, we're  _ still _ stuck down here."

"Shut up Marz, let me think." Fox grumbled, appraising the situation. They were on the verge of being overrun, and one of the smarter Psions was directing some of the squad to encircle their position. She hated to admit it, but her partners were right.

"Fox." Locus rumbled from behind them, slinging his bow onto his back. She looked at him, cocking her head questioningly. "You want a tether?"

That got her ideas churning again. She grinned beneath her helm and nodded.

"Hell yeah I do. Light 'em up, big guy."

Locus nodded stiffly, breathing in deeply before charging forward, hurdling the crates they were using as a barrier and raising his hands as if holding a bow. He seemed to float in the air, untouched by gravity as he carefully aimed, pulled, and released.

An arrow of pure Void Light erupted from the chest of the Centurion leading their opponents, launched from the ethereal longbow that had formed in the Hunter's hands. It blazed a bright purple as it tethered the nearby Cabal. They stumbled away, blinded as Locus landed, leaped, aimed, and pulled again. Another arrow pierced the ground in the center of the group. Another vaporized one of the Psions and restrained the others. Another. Another. Another.

Once the battlefield was awash with the purple glow of the Void tethers, Fox steeled herself and charged over the barricade herself. She raised her arm and her Light coalesced into a glowing purple shield, humming with power. With a yell, she launched it into the crowd of restrained enemies, where it ricocheted between several and blasted them into oblivion. The shield snapped back to her arm just as she crashed into the lead Psion, crushing him flat as his body disintegrated. The tethers started to die as she threw the shield again, but it was too late. The aegis soared across the rooftop, slashing through any Cabal it encountered in its way.

Fox looked over the carnage confidently as both tethers and shield alike fizzled away into nothingness. The squadron was broken, and anything that  _ had _ survived was in a scramble to retreat. 

"Show off." Marz mumbled as the Titan turned back towards her Warlock partner. She started to walk back towards him, a retort already on her lips, when she was interrupted by a screaming growl of Cabal obscenities. She spun around to find herself face-to-face with a dying Psion, impaled on the blade of Locus's sword. He pulled it away and removed the weapon from the corpse with a smooth motion.

" _ Please _ watch your back, Fox." he sighed, slotting his sword back into its holster. "I won't always be able to do it for you."

"Pft. I don't think I could get rid of you if I  _ wanted _ to." Fox snorted, slugging the taller Hunter in the shoulder. "Now c'mon you two, we still gotta find a way up there." she continued, pointing up at the flagship that now hung nearly overhead.

They continued across the rooftops, hurriedly blowing through rooftop gardens and clambering up fire escapes up higher and higher buildings. They finally reached the top of one of the taller buildings in the district, and were shocked to see the Cabal ships attaching some sort of device to the Traveler overhead. Roughly star shaped and larger even than the flagship, it looked and felt exceptionally dangerous.

"What the  _ hell _ is that?" Fox asked, gaping at the imposing device. No one could answer, and before they had time to consider it, the door behind them exploded open, and dozens more Red Legion troops poured through it, opening fire as soon as they saw the Guardians. "Shit!"

The trio dived for cover, and a sudden roar filled the air as a jumpship rose over the roofline behind them. With a whir, it opened fire on the Cabal, its heavy cannons easily shredding through the army pushing its way up the stairs.

"Thought y'all could use some help!" Amanda Holliday exclaimed over the ships external speakers, hovering over them. "C'mon, I'll getcha outta there!"

The trio ran to the edge of the roof towards the waiting ship, but Siris hesitated. Fox and Locus paused and looked back, sensing something was wrong.

"I…" he paused. "I know you two can handle this. I need to go find Meg. She can handle herself in a scuffle but...this is  _ war _ . I need to get her out of here."

"Go." Locus urged. "We'll find you when this is all over." Fox nodded in agreement and Siris let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank you. Find the rhino who did this and shoot him in the face for me, ok?" Siris waited til they both nodded and then turned and bolted into the smoldering stairwell, quickly disappearing into the smoke of the burning City.

"Hold on you two!" Amanda warned, and with a flash, the pair was transmatted up into the cockpit behind her. They were tossed against the walls of the cramped enclosure almost immediately, as their savior accelerated rapidly up and away, throw the clouds of smoke until they broke into the dark sky above.

There was a sober silence that fell over all three of them as they saw the twinkling embers of fire and death falling over the City from above. It looked almost beautiful, like a dying campfire smoldering in the rain. 

"Tell me you're gonna end this." Amanda broke the silence, her voice soft but deadly serious. "Tell me you're gonna kick these bastards out of  _ our _ City."

"Damn right we are." Fox replied, putting her hand on the pilot's shoulder. "If you can get us to that flagship, I'll bring you back their leader's gun myself."

"Good." she scowled, leaning heavily over the controls. "Hang on you two. I'll get ya on that ship."

Locus wisely grabbed the jumpseat in the back of the cockpit and strapped himself in, just as Amanda punched the engines and shot off towards the looming flagship. The ship spun to the right, avoiding a droppod by what felt like inches, then shot almost straight upwards, narrowly escaping two smaller warships that nearly collided as their target escaped. 

After a short but nausea-inducing ride, Amanda darted into a blind spot beneath the massive flagship and finally came to a hovering stop. Locus sighed in relief as he released the straps, and Fox dusted herself off as she popped up from where she had been thrown into the floor.

"This is as close as I can get. Bridge looks like it's right above us. Kick some ass, you two. And…" Amanda shot them a concerned look. "Be careful. Please."

"Can do, Ace!" Fox chirped, enthusiasm untouched by the somber circumstances. Locus sighed but nodded, and the two fizzled away in the buzz of the transmat. They dropped onto one of the droppod arms beneath the ship and immediately readied their weapons and took off upwards, into the belly of the massive ship.

"We need a map." Locus grumbled, bow at half-draw. "These Cabal ships are damn mazes."

"You're in luck." Fox replied, peering around a corner. "Console right there. And only...six Cabal guarding it!"

"Fox…" Locus started but was interrupted by a yell in the Cabal language and a series of pops. Too late. He sighed and ran around the corner, shoulders flexing as he pulled the bow to full draw and silencing the yell permanently. Fox had already finished two of them, spinning her hand cannon with a flourish as she reloaded.

It only took a moment to clear the room, and another to figure out the alien computer system which, conveniently, was already displaying a ship map.

"Through the engine room and up." Fox noted, readying her gun once again. "Let's go!"

The pair smashed through the opposition in their way, fueled by their anger and proximity to their goal. As Fox ran an Incendior through with her sword, Locus scouted the door ahead of them.

"This leads to the flightdeck. If that map was right, our target is here."

"Then let's get in their and kick some ass!" Locus could tell Fox was grinning under her helmet as she hefted a grenade and held down the switch. "Blow the door, big guy."

Locus sighed and punched the door controls instead, letting the door open on its own.

"Spoil-sport." Fox grumbled as it slid open, then joined her partner charging through onto the flightdeck. They were both surprised to find it, apparently, abandoned and empty. No army stood to greet them, and no Cabal general waiting for death. The deck had been cleared, and was only dimly lit by the fires from below.

"Where the hell…" Fox muttered, looking around frantically.

"Welcome to a world...without Light." a voice boomed from behind, and the pair spun around to see a massive Cabal warrior, clad in white armor and a respirator covering the lower half of his face. His skin was far paler than the average Cabal, almost gray, and he was covered in scars. In his right hand, he held a sort of remote which, as they watched and before they could stop him, he pressed.

Behind them, a whir drew their attention. The device attached to the Traveler glowed bright, and arms of light expanded from it, encircling and enclosing the massive machine with a field of orange and black.

"Locus…" Milo, the Hunter's Ghost, suddenly interjected, floating drowsily into view. "Something...something's wrong...."

Marz drifted up from her hiding spot as well, shifting uneasily. "I don't feel rrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight." Her voice slurred and distorted as her eye flickered, and then both Ghosts fell to the ground as one, lifeless.

"Milo!" Locus scooped up his Ghost quickly and Fox was able to catch hers as it fell. Both looked up at the Cabal general with looks of fear and rage, tainted with confusion.

"Do not look at me, creatures!" He bellowed, leaping forward, assisted by the rocket pack built into his armor. Neither of the paralyzed, powerless Guardians could do anything to stop him as he swept his arm and sent them bowling over, dropping and scattering their weapons and Ghosts across the flightdeck and down, down, down into the City below. He reached down and hoisted them up by their necks effortlessly, one in each hand. They both struggled weakly, uselessly against his grip, but could not break it.

'You are not  _ brave _ ." He taunted. "You have simply forgotten the fear of death. Allow me to reacquaint you." He walked forward towards the edge of the ship and dangled them over it. 

"Your kind never deserved the power you were given." He declared, looking at both of them in turn. "I am Ghaul. And your Light...is  _ mine. _ " He loosened his grip, tossed them out into the abyss, and the pair both fell down into the dark.

* * *

Fox barely managed to open her eyes, caked as they were with dried blood and dust. Her body ached, pain spiking through her ribs and her legs, worse than anything she'd felt in her life, at least not that she remembered. She blinked a few times, wincing, and appraised her surroundings. She was sprawled across Locus's legs as if he had tried to shield her from the fall. A stupid idea, if it were true: her armor would've provided far better protection than his.

She looked around further. They seemed to have fallen through the rotting wood roof of some shed or another, and had pretty well annihilated it entirely. Probably explained why they had lived though, or at least why she had.

"Locus?" She croaked, her throat thick with more blood and smoke. "Locus, are you alive?" She rolled off of him and stifled a groan—had definitely cracked a rib there, probably  _ most _ of them. She pulled off her helmet gingerly (the thing was already busted wide open, after all) and dropped it with a heavy  _ clunk _ , quickly reaching up to clear her eyes with the arm that didn't feel like it had gone through a meat grinder. "Locus?"

She got a weak grunt in response, which was enough, at least, to prove he still lived. "Marz, I need a patch job." She muttered, not even trying to stand with how her legs felt. "Marz, c'mon."

"Ghosts...dead…" Locus grunted, his speech labored and even his breathing taking effort. "Gall...Gary...Cabal, 'member?"

" _ Shit _ ." Fox cursed, propping herself up on her "good" arm and taking in the scene. Legionaries and psions could be seen roaming through buildings in the distance, but their sector was abandoned, for now. They had time. "Can you stand?"

A labored wheeze was all she got in response and she sighed, wincing hard as the motion put pressure on her battered ribcage. They needed to get out of the open, preferably into one of the many dark alleys she knew existed down her at street level. Fox gingerly tested her other arm and found that, while painful, it could hold weight.

"Ok I gotta test my legs." she warned, bracing herself. She rolled over again and managed to get herself up into a seated position, which took most of the pressure off her ribs. Appraising her legs, one was clearly broken—the foot facing about 90 degrees to the right of where it was supposed to be was testament to that—but the other seemed relatively ok, peppered with splinters but mostly intact. Finding a seemingly stable post that remained of the shed, she hauled herself to her feet. 

"Ohhh shit shit shit shit shit…" she grunted, feeling things shifting around that definitely should  _ not _ have been shifting. It was an unpleasant experience at best, but her leg held her weight and, through a combination of limping and hopping, she could walk...mostly.

"Alright big guy." she muttered, returning to Locus's side. "We're getting you out of here."

It was a laborious task getting the large Hunter on his feet. His ribs had been spared some of the damage from hers but his legs were both broken, one quite graphically and the other in a distressing, not-quite-done lurch of pain every time he took a step. Needless to say, it was slow going. Locus was leaning heavily on Fox, downright getting carried at times, as they stumbled and crawled from their landing space to the nearest yawning dark alley. Locus pretty well collapsed once they passed into the shadows, despite Fox's urgings. 

"Slowing you down." He groaned, hand clamped over his thigh. "Go. Leave…"

"I am  _ not _ leaving you behind you big idiot." Fox responded snappily, trying to urge him back to his feet but, failing that, helped him sit down against the alley wall. "C'mon, we can do this. Short rest then we move." Locus let out a dry laugh that turned into a weak cough at the thought.

"I'm not going anywhere." He managed after a moment. "Not with this." He finally moved his hand revealing that, somewhere in their long fall and tumble through the rumble of the ruined city, a chunk of rebar had found his thigh and bit in deep. It was still readily losing blood at a somewhat alarming rate, especially now that he had pulled his hand away from it.

"Oh come on that—pft, that's, that's nothing." Fox scoffed, voice unsteady, as if she were trying to convince herself as much as him. "We just gotta...we gotta get out of here, we gotta find Milo, and you'll be just fine!" More dry laughter followed.

"Our Ghosts are dead, Fox, remember? Stupid Cabal…" He coughed, a wetter sound this time that smelled concerningly of copper. "I'm not going anywhere, you just gotta...just gotta…"

He had started dozing off. That was bad, that much Fox knew. She patted his helmet, causing him to jerk back up.

"C'mon Locus don't fall asleep on me here. I need you here with me." Fox's voice was faltering just slightly, a clear indicator of how she felt at this moment. "Get back up big guy."

"Just...just gotta rest a minute. Just a minute then we can go."

"No no you can't rest Locus we need to move  _ now _ ." She urged, pleading. She didn't get a response this time. "Locus?"

Nothing.

"Locus!" She was almost begging now, grabbing his shoulders and giving him a gentle shake. Still nothing. "God, Sam, wake up." she pleaded, dropping his codename in favor of his real one. "Sam!"

The resounding lack of response from her partner shook Fox to her core. She was, for the first time since this had started, well and truly alone. Locus's blood still trickled from the gaping wound in his thigh, but she couldn't even tell if he was still breathing under his armor. Searching, frantically she tore of her tattered mark and dressed his wound as best she could, trying, dying to do  _ anything _ she could for him. Her further attempts failed to wake him, however, and now she was at a crossroads.

She could do what he had wanted: leave him, run for the hills, and, if she was lucky, make it out of the City alive. That was unthinkable. She had done a great number of questionable and even horrible things in her time alive as a Guardian. But abandoning Locus, her partner, her  _ lifeline _ ...no. She wouldn't do it, not now, not ever.

That left her few options. Moving the Hunter was out of the question. She could carry him easily at her normal strength, but wounded as they both were, it wasn't a choice here. That left one: nothing.

She settled back down, sliding over to sit across the tight alleyway from her fallen partner. If this was what whatever god was out there had in store for her, so be it. She pulled out her hand cannon and the fusion rifle she carried, and waited, to kill or to die, only fate knew. The silence around them grew into something more as her ears grew attuned to the rest of the noise of the City: distant gunfire, the crumble of a building, screams, both human and Cabal. But the sound she was most straining to hear, breathing, speech, a heartbeat,  _ anything _ from her partner, remained elusive and out of reach.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there, waiting for some Legionary to round the corner and finish them both off. Hours blended together, and with the clouds and smoke filling the sky, keeping track of time was impossible. She had removed Locus's scarred helmet at some point, that she remembered, to try and check if he was breathing. She had felt nothing, which, she justified to herself, could just as easily mean his breathing was shallow and hard to catch. 

It wasn't until the clouds had begun to clear and the very earliest vestiges of a pink dawn could be seen on the horizon, that she saw it. A lone Ghost, floating quickly and carefully through the street outside. She strained to catch a glimpse of its shell, and was shaken with realization.

"Noodle?" she rasped, her voice hoarse from hours of breathing the dust and ash. "Noodle, is that you?" she crawled slowly towards the light of the street, and the diminutive machine stopped. 

"Oh, Traveler...Fox? Is that you? And Locus?" the Ghost responded.

"Please, help." She begged, her voice almost broken. "Sam is...is hurt. I can't tell if he's...I don't think he's breathing."

"Hold on Fox." Noodle urged, trying to get her to calm down before she hurt herself further. "Siris is coming, he'll be right here. Then we can all get out of here."

"Help him, please." Her voice was thick, not with dust but this time with tears, barely contained.

Noodle drifted back the way he had come, and returned after a moment with a battered Warlock in purple. He was limping heavily, favoring his right leg. Behind him she could see Meg, holding his shotgun in a death grip.

"Holy shit, Fox, you're alive." He gasped, stumbling towards them. "Here, I found...your Ghosts. Landed in a burnt out garden a block away. They've been  _ very _ worried about you."

Marz and Milo both floated out of his pack and shot to their respective Guardians.

'Fox you idiot." Marz chided, scanning her quickly. "You're lucky I can still heal you, even without the Light." Fox finally,  _ finally _ felt the warm glow of her Ghost's energy once again and sighed in deep relief as her ribs cracked back into place and her cuts and bruises faded.

"Locus. Milo, can you help him? Is he…" Fox trailed off, not wanting to but her nightmare in words. The Ghost was silent for a long moment as he scanned his Hunter carefully.

"He's alive." He announced after a moment. "Barely. But he's still there. I can fix this."

"Oh thank the stars." Fox gasped as Milo bathed Locus in light. After untold hours of silence, he  _ finally _ sat up, coughing heavily and rubbing his sore thigh.

"Miss me?" he croaked, a joke he regretted the second he said it, especially when Fox jumped on him and wrapped him in one of her infamous Titan Hugs.

"Don't you  _ ever _ drift out on me like that  _ again _ ." She hissed in his ear, sniffling lightly. "You  _ bastard _ ."

"Try not to." he grumbled, accepting that he was just going to have to deal with this hug for now. "No promises though, especially given...this."

"Don't talk, she'll give up eventually." Siris suggested, limping back over towards his wife. It was clear his prosthetic had garnered some damage that Noodle had not been able to fix, something they'd have to deal with eventually. Frankly, they'd have to deal with  _ all _ of this mess eventually. But not now. Now was the time to celebrate what had survived a harrowing ordeal, and that was exactly what the group planned to do.


End file.
